Spring Season Wrap Up!

The spring is officially over and summer is here, in case you couldn’t already tell by the insane heat! WINNERS had a historic season in 2016 and I can’t wait to share everything with you! Of course we have the stats to share, like having the most participants on our spring teams than ever before increasing 40% from last year to over 420 participants. Those participants come from 67 different schools in DC, where last spring we were at 50 schools. There is no doubt we have grown the game this spring.

However, what is most striking is what we found from our surveys. These findings are tough to quantify, so I thought I’d show you what I mean. At the end of the spring season we asked each parent this question: “Have you noticed a positive change in your child from participating in WINNERS Lacrosse and if so, how?” What I have done below is created what is called a wordcloud. I copied and pasted all of the responses into a text block and it generated this image, where the bigger words are the ones that appear most often.

Parents are clearly seeing a positive impact in their children as a direct result of playing WINNERS Lacrosse and we could not be more ecstatic. While teaching lacrosse is important, we care most about impacting our players to succeed far beyond the lacrosse field. Our coaches are the people that make that happen, all 60 of them that worked tirelessly to make the 2016 spring season the best one yet!

There is another wordcloud I wanted to share, this one comes from the players. Here are their answers to the question, “What is your favorite part about playing WINNERS Lacrosse?”.

As cliché as it sounds, it really makes my heart happy seeing these images. While yes, it makes me feel good that I’m not doing a terrible job, it shows that we are making a difference here. All kids love this sport, and all kids should have access to the joy that it brings. Urban lacrosse organizations are all over this country, and I urge you to get involved in any way you can. This is more than a game, and I’m sure if you’re reading this you already know that. If you ever need to rekindle your love for the game, I suggest heading to an urban lacrosse practice. It’s hard for me to put into words the feeling you get watching these kids play. Check out some pictures below to see what I’m talking about! #growthegame